“I-I didn’t—” Anisim began to try to explain.
“Anisim didn’t want to put you out,” Old-timer continued, “but I insisted.” He put his hand on his heart to feign earnestness. “Please forgive him. Look, we’re really old friends, and he’s always said Jules was the best girl he ever went on a date with and, with the rescue happening today and all, I said to him, ‘Look, Anisim, if we get called back today because things go really well, I want you to finally introduce me to that girl you won’t shut up about.’” He smiled. “And so…” he made a grand flourish with his hand to emphasize the point, “we’re here.”
Jules put a self-conscious hand up to fix her hair before beginning to utter a response, “I wish you’d let me know first—”
“I’m sorry—” Anisim began to apologize.
“He really is,” Old-timer cut him off, “he tried to talk me out of it. But I wouldn’t let him. We were just so happy that the rescue went so well and, well, Anisim thought we’d be perfect for each other and, I just wanted to meet you so gosh darn much. But look, I can see we’re putting you out. Maybe we can just come back another time?”
“No, no,” Jules replied, her face coloring. Old-timer marveled that an android’s face could flush. “It’s okay, I’m so flattered.” Her eyes went to Anisim and she added, seemingly embarrassed, “Anisim, I had no idea.”
“Me neither,” Anisim replied.
Old-timer resisted the urge to twist the tendril.
Luckily, Jules didn’t seem to catch the verbal misstep. “Just pardon the mess, okay? But come on up.”
“Oh, thank you. You’ve made a couple a fella’s days, milady.”
“Aw, shucks,” Jules replied as the door unlocked. “See you in a minute.” Her image vanished.
“That was close,” Old-timer noted, his faux, flirty smile completely vanished.
“I’m going to burn in Hell for this,” Anisim replied as they made their way to the inner, hollowed out core of the building. They began to float upward toward Jules’s apartment. “She’s a nice girl. She doesn’t deserve this.”
“Hey, I don’t remember us calling the android collective and asking you to ‘rescue’ us, for Christ’s sakes. You people are so deluded, it’s—”
“We’re not the deluded ones,” Anisim replied. “I promise you. Please don’t hurt her.”
They arrived outside Jules’s door, floating to the ledge at her doorstep on the thirtieth floor.
“I’ll be as gentle with her as your kind have been with mine,” Old-timer replied coldly.
2
It’s the moment of truth, James thought. Will the candidate help us or turn his back?
James reached up, his eyes locked on those of the candidate as the A.I. and Thel stood, their necks craned upward as they watched the unfolding of the telling events while the NPCs crashed and clawed against the elevator door. It sounded as though the outside door of the elevator had already partially given way and only the thin interior door stood between them and their prey. They were seconds from breaking in.
To the shared relief of the A.I. and the post-humans, the candidate did, indeed, reach back, his gloved hand grasping James’s, and James turned to grab Thel’s hand, who in turn grasped the hand of the A.I., who, inexplicably to Thel, made sure he grabbed the hand of the Kali avatar.
“Hang on tight,” the candidate said as he began to fly upward, through the hole in the roof that the A.I. had blasted with his gun, de-patternizing it. The cold rain pelted them as they lifted off into the night, leaving the candidate’s building below them—a building now crawling with NPCs. It was a sight the A.I. had seen before, the walls seeming to move with the untold number of bodies scaling the outside of the structure.
“Where do we go?” Thel shouted out.
James turned to the skyline of the sim city. The tallest rooftops were obscured by the heavy cloak of cloud and rain. “Head to the highest buildings,” James yelled to the candidate. “We’ll lose them in the canopy!”
The candidate nodded as he flew, slowly and cautiously, into the dark, gothic sky. He chose the tallest building in the city and they landed on the roof, the A.I. and Kali touching down first, followed by the others.
“Are we stuck now?” Thel asked, as she brushed the gravel from the rooftop from the knees of her new, black body armor. “We just have to wait here to be rescued by Aldous?”
“I don’t believe that would be a wise course of action,” the A.I. returned.